The first strike had attracted a swarm of MiGs. The GCI controller continued to report more MiGs taking off from Kep, Gia Lam, and Phuc Yen.
"Are you cinched in tight, Harry?"
"I'm set."
Brad heard the leader of the four Phantoms from their sister squadron. They were engaging the first group of MiGs en route to the first target area. The F-8 Crusaders would tackle any fighters that eluded the Phantoms.
"Okay," Harry announced, "I've got 'em at three o'clock, going feet dry."
Brad looked to his right and peered at the coastline 8,000 feet below. He could see the strike aircraft race over the beach.
When Bull Durham lowered his F-4's nose, Brad automatically moved out to a combat spread position. He preferred to be three quarters of a mile to the right of his flight leader, stepped up 500 feet. The aerial combat formation provided both crews an opportunity to constantly scan around each other's aircraft.
Descending through 6,000 feet, Lunsford locked up a MiG on his radar. Turning twenty degrees to the right, Durham headed straight for the Communist fighter. Brad stepped down 1,000 feet, crossed under his leader, then moved back into position on the left side of Durham.
"You got anything, Harry?"
There was a slight pause. "Yeah. The shakes."
Brad increased power to stay even with Durham. "Lock him up, Harry. We have to make it count."
"It's intermittent. The box won't lock on."
At four miles from their target, Brad spotted the lead MiG. A second later he saw three more in trail formation. He keyed his radio. "Bull, we have four bogies at one o'clock, crossing right to left."
"Got 'em," Durham replied, firing a Sparrow missile a moment later.
Entranced, Brad watched the missile make slight corrections, then track to the third aircraft in the line-astern formation. The Sparrow detonated under the nose of the MiG-21, blowing the cockpit away from the fuselage. The remains of the fighter plummeted toward the ground, streaming fuel and shedding parts.
"I'm going HEAT," Brad said to Harry at the same instant the MiGs turned hard into the two Phantoms.
Seeing the muzzle flashes from the first MiG's cannon, Brad unconsciously lowered his head a couple of inches. The MiG flight leader had selected Brad as his prey. The opposing aircraft were closing head-on with a closure rate of more than 1,000 miles per hour.
Slightly lower than the Phantoms, the MiGs were climbing toward Brad's F-4. Timing his move, Brad waited until the first MiG was seconds from passing under his fighter, then punched off his centerline tank. The Communist flight leader banked hard to the left, missing the tumbling external fuel tank. His wingman broke right, followed by the third MiG.
"Vertical reverse!" Durham ordered, pulling hard on his stick. "Kick off the tanks." He had not seen the fuel tank fall away from Brad's Phantom.
"Two."
Brad mirrored Durham's maneuver, jamming the throttles into afterburner. Passing forty-five degrees nose up, both pilots banked toward each other.
The MiG flight leader snapped his aircraft into the vertical and turned toward Durham's F-4. The white stripe across the camouflaged tail was easy to recognize.
"That's Major Dao!" Lunsford shouted over the radio.
Brad could hear the edge of panic in his friend's voice. The Phantoms passed nose to nose with thirty feet of separation. Both pilots twisted their necks as far as possible in an effort to see who the MiG flight leader would challenge.
"He's jumping Bull!" Harry said, straining to find the other two MiGs. "He's staying on Bull."
"Joker One," Brad shouted into his damp mask, "break hard port — go for separation!"
Durham unloaded the g forces and accelerated away from the MiG-21. Approaching the speed of sound, the American flight leader reversed to reengage the MiGs.
Catching sight of the two MiGs closing from eight o'clock, Brad pulled hard into a displacement roll. His conversation with Nick Palmer, in regard to aerial combat maneuvers, flashed through his mind. He righted the F-4 and started a turn to the right, allowing the MiGs to turn inside his Phantom.
"Do you see Dao?" Brad asked over the intercom. For the first time in his combat tour, Austin was beginning to taste fear and desperation. "Have you got him?"
Harry thrashed from side to side, frantic to locate the MiG ace. "No! He's got to be on our six — below us… I think."
Brad waited until the MiGs were inside his radius of turn before he unloaded the Phantoms In the same profile, the American fighter floated away from the MiG pilots. They instinctively snap rolled their aircraft to follow the F-4.
Brad gritted his teeth and yanked on the stick, pulling an instant 7 g's as he executed a barrel roll to the left. The MiGs flashed by under him, allowing Brad a narrow window of escape.
He shoved the nose down and caught sight of Major Dao tracking him from above and behind. The MiG pilot fired a missile that shot over the Phantom, disappearing in the morning haze.
"Joker Two," Durham yelled, "go vertical!"
"Two," Brad groaned under the g forces he exerted on the fighter. He could barely breathe, sensing the onslaught of gray-out. His g suit felt as though it would explode if he pulled any harder. Harry appeared to be a lifeless rag doll in the rear cockpit.
When Brad's F-4 rocketed straight up in afterburner, the MiG ace turned his attention to Durham. The other two MiGs had maneuvered to gain the advantage on the American flight leader, causing Bull and Russ to concentrate on escaping from them.
When Brad reversed, he spotted the MiG leader setting up a shot at Durham. Hearing a momentary buzzing in his earphones, Brad punched off a Sidewinder. The angle off was too wide for the missile to track properly. It flew out of sight a second before two surface-to-air missiles blasted through the aerial combatants.
"Bull," Brad shouted, "reverse hard left!" Watching Durham's F-4 snap into knife-edge flight, Brad was startled when a third SAM exploded in front of the two MiG wingmen. One aircraft cartwheeled out of the sky in a blazing fireball. The other MiG pilot dove for the deck and raced toward Phuc Yen.
Seconds away from locking a Sidewinder on Major Dao, Brad was appalled to see a missile come off the MiG-21. The Atoll flew straight to Durham's Phantom, detonating over the right wing. The launch and explosion happened so fast that Brad did not have time to key his radio.
Durham's F-4 snap rolled three times, then tucked nose down and blew apart in a blinding flash.
"Oh… God," Brad said, tasting bile at the back of his throat. Stunned, he snatched the Phantom around while he searched for the MiG flight leader.
"They got out," Harry shouted. "Two chutes… I've got two good chutes!"
Without his two wingmen, Maj. Nguyen Dao did not want to go one on one with the superior Phantom. He lowered his nose and dove toward his base.
Spotting the MiG ace diving away, Brad pushed the stick forward and slammed the throttles into afterburner. "Call SAR. Get 'em the coordinates." A mile behind the fleeing MiG-21, Brad saw a vapor flash when the Communist fighter went supersonic.
Harry got the message to search and rescue, then keyed his intercom. "What the hell are you doing?"
"I'm going to get that sonuvabitch."
"Like shit you are," Harry said warily. "He's headed for Phuc Yen, and we aren't supposed to attack it."
"The rules," Brad replied, breathing rapidly, "as I understand them, say we can go over Phuc Yen as long as we are engaged in battle. We just can't hit anything on the ground."
Leveling at 200 feet and indicating Mach 1.15, Brad was not gaining on the wily MiG pilot. The two fighters were headed straight toward Phuc Yen, blasting the countryside with twin sonic booms.
"Goddamnit," Harry shouted, "we're almost out of fuel!"
Brad darted a glance at the Phantom's fuel-quantity indicator. "We've got twenty-nine hundred left. Call and have a tanker meet us offshore."